This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Every boy has to become a man someday. Even a Fatboy. And for Norman Cook, former Housemartins bassist-turned-king DJ, a trip to Palookaville is just what the funk soul brother needed.
This fourth studio set from Fatboy Slim charts a different course from the beat-crazy, sample-happy dance grooves that fuelled You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby. Mellower, moodier and more melodic, Palookaville’s dozen cuts document Cook’s increasing musical maturity — he may be a hedonistic DJ, but he is 41, after all — and seem influenced, if not inspired, by some recently reported marital woes.
The former is reflected in the wider and more varied stylistic palette that includes hip-hop, reggae, gospel and folk. As for the latter — well, let’s just say you don’t have to be Freud to read between the lines of Mi Bebe Masoquista (My Masochistic Baby) or the nostalgically dreamy jazz-pop of North West Three (which samples John and Bev Martyn’s Primrose Hill).
Palookaville isn’t just musical marriage counselling, though. Fatboy fires up the sampler for Don’t Let The Man Get You Down, which is based around the “long-haired freaky people” lyrics from the Five Man Electrical Band’s Signs. Slash Dot Slash and the African-influenced Jin Go Lo Ba bump up the BPMs briefly, while old pal Damon Albarn drops by for the folky Putting it All Back Together, and Bootsy Collins brings the funk to a bass-heavy cover of Steve Miller’s The Joker.
Heavy-handed covers aside, it’s easy to tell that life isn’t all a big joke to Cook anymore. As a result, Palookaville makes it clear Slim has come a long way, baby.
